When writing a method in .NET (C# or VB), you typically have to overload that method if you want to provide default or optional parameters. Now, thanks to C# 4.0 and VB 10, you can use optional parameters.

For example, prior to C# 4.0, you had to do the following:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
// Assume we're using a class and the following stuff is from our class

// no parameters
public void myMethod()
{
    myMethod("optional");
}

// one parameter
public void myMethod(string str)
{
    // STUB
}

As you can see from the preceding code, you need to type more than one function. To each their own. Some people like doing this, some people don’t. I like how it works in PHP:

1
2
3
function myFunc($optional="hello world!") {
// STUB
}


CONTINUE READING